Bully's Blog

or Raising Up the Temple

An analysis of the literary structure of Day 5 of Creation and passages that are apparently parallel.
Here are links to Days 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Day 5 contains some surprises. It mirrors Day 3 in the chiasm:

1
…..2
……….3
……………4
……….5
…..6
7

and yet Day 5 fills the space created on Day 2:

Forming the spaces
1
…..2
……….3

Filling the spaces
4
…..5
……….6

Stanza 1

As with Day 3, it contains 2 stanzas (or cycles). What is really surprising is that I can only get this first stanza to fit the Creation pattern if I run it BACKWARDS. Sure, the water of 2 and 6 is still mirrored, and the Lord is at 1 and 7, but 3 and 5 are very different.

Then God said, (Day of the Lord)
…..“Let the waters abound (Laver – Mediators)
……….with an abundance
……….of living creatures, (Incense – Swarms/Clouds)
……………and let birds fly (Lampstand – Heavenly Rulers)
……….above the [Land] (Altar – Land above Gentile Sea)
……….across the face (Table of Facebread – Grain and Fruit)*
…..of the firmament (Veil – Firmament)
of the heavens.” (Ark – In the beginning)

*Notice that the Altar and Land are a self-contained unit, and so their order is not swapped, even though the whole process runs backwards. The plants still follow the ascension of the Land as glorified Adamic soil.

Now, the Creation pattern only runs backwards when God is deconstructing the world (or its microcosmic tent or Temple). But we are in the brief time before sin entered through Adam. What is going on here?

If you look carefully, you can see that the stanza works its way up from the deep, through the fish, out of the water to the birds, up to the sky and then into heaven. Day 5 is Step 5, and Step 5 is the resurrection of the body. It seems that the Author is communicating resurrection as both creating something new, and also a turning back of time.

Step 3 is the Ascension of the Covenant Head to receive the two stone witnesses of the Law. Step 5 is those stone Laws written on two tablets of flesh, the Covenant Body as Two Witnesses. The Law is written on resurrected hearts, and unlike the silent Head (silent as a Lamb), they speak and sing. It is the difference between Sinai and Deuteronomy.

This step is also military; it is ten plagues, or two witnesses marching 5 abreast. It is ten backward steps of the scorching sun of Day 4 on the stairway of Ahaz as a witness to the promise of healing:

(2 Kings 2:8-11)

(Creation – Day 1)
Hezekiah had asked Isaiah,

…..(Division – Day 2)**
…..“What will be the sign that the LORD will heal me

……….(Ascension – Day 3)
……….and that I will go up to the temple of the LORD
……….on the third day from now?”

……………(Testing – Day 4 – Pentecost – Law opened)
……………Isaiah answered,
………………..“This is the LORD’s sign
…………………….to you
………………..that the LORD will do
……………what he has promised:

……….(Maturity – Day 5 – Two Witnesses)
……….Shall the shadow go forward ten steps,
……….or shall it go back ten steps?”

…..(Conquest – Day 6 – Day of Coverings, open Veil
…..Man divides morning and evening at Atonement)
…..“It is a simple matter for the shadow to go forward ten steps,”
…..said Hezekiah. “Rather, have it go back ten steps.”

(Glorification – Day 7 – Rest and Shelter)
Then the prophet Isaiah
…..called upon the LORD,
……….and the LORD
……………made the shadow (death defeated)
……….go back the ten steps (Day 5)
…..it had gone down
on the stairway of Ahaz.

**Division is Sanctification, a setting apart of God’s man.

Stanza 2

So God created great sea creatures (Genesis)***
…..and every living thing that moves, (Exodus)
……….(Land rulers and Sea rulers divided – Leviticus)
……….with which the waters abounded,
………. according to their kind,
……….and every winged bird
………. according to its kind.
………………..(Numbers – Judgment of Body)
………………..And God saw that [it was] good.
……………(Deuteronomy – Blessings/Curses upon Body)
……………And God blessed them, saying,
……………“Be fruitful and multiply,
…..(Joshua – a new body of Jew and Gentile)
…..and fill the waters in the seas,
…..and let birds multiply on the [Land].”
(Judges – rulers in the Land)
So the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

***Only three created things are described as wonderful: the heavens and earth, the great sea creatures, and Man. Here, the sea creatures are “at the head” of the stanza as wonderful.

I can only surmise that Day 5 has two stanzas because the first forms the “Bridal” Covenant Body and the second fills it, which is exactly what we see in Ezekiel 37, just before the Conquest of Haman and Persia in Ezekiel 38 and 39. So Day 5 is a microcosm of the entire week as a whole, and also in its two parts. Wheels within wheels indeed.

Throughout the Bible, there are good swarms and bad swarms, good armies and bad armies, fragrant smoke and sulphur, at “Day 5.” One is the offspring of the Incense Altar, and the other is the offspring of the Altar of the Abyss. In Revelation, the Judaizers are described as this offspring, a smoke from the abyss that turns into locusts that devour. But what does Jesus do later in the book for the martyred Firstfruits church? He turns back time for the faithful, the “two witnesses” church which is also an army from the east (literally, from the Sunrise). In fact, for all those who died at the hands of Cainites under the Old Covenant, Jesus restored the years that the locust had eaten. He brought about The End of Shadows.